A Day of Repentance for National Sin

Saturday was a National Day of Prayer and Repentance as people around America were crying out to God for His mercy and grace to touch our nation. We are in a time of turmoil and shaking like I've never seen in my life before and that even people older than me have not seen before. Anger and confusion abound on both sides and as the election looms we hear whispers of a possible civil war. If ever there was a time for us to both turn to God and look within it is now.

I believe that America is a good country. We were established on certain principles that in my opinion encapsulate the ideal way in which a nation should be governed. These principles are summed in in the opening phrase of the Declaration of Independence which states "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. And are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights among which are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." This statement lays the ideological foundation for Human Rights, which every country should make their mission to uphold and protect.

But while I admire the phrase I also recognize the deep hypocrisy of the fact that the man who wrote it owned slaves. And while I am grateful for the ideological foundation that this country rests upon I also acknowledge that historically it was not extended to all of the people within it. Both Slavery and then the Jim Crow laws stood as markers of our national pretense - where we shouted human rights to the world while not extending it to every person within our borders.

I would consider myself a conservative and as I have said earlier I believe the country is good and I also acknowledge that our nation reformed itself. We saw the injustice of slavery to be so intolerable that we sent our sons to war over it. And after the Civil Rights movement of the 60's we voted to end segretation. Yet while the nation in many ways has self corrected we cannot deny that our African American brothers and sisters still deal with the legacy of these past evils.

So in this time national prayer and repentance let us consider what has brought our country to this point. Let us do as Daniel did and partake in identificational repentance for sins that he and likely his parents did not personally commit but that his nation was guilty of (see Daniel 9:1-19). May we pray as he did that even though our sins be scarlet that God would cleanse and heal our nation. Let us look for ways that we can show kindess to our fellow man of every color and background. And let us seek for a nation where all people can prosper.

Amen.